Film-forming substances are widely used in compositions for skin and hair care as conditioning agents and moisturizers, and to protect the skin and hair against environmental and chemical damage. These substances adsorb onto and/or absorb into the skin or hair, forming a protective coating. Commonly used film-forming substances include synthetic polymers, such as silicones, polyvinylpyrrolidone, acrylic acid polymers, and polysaccharides, and proteins, such as collagen, keratin, elastin, casein, silk, and soy proteins. Many proteins are known to be particularly effective film-forming agents. Because of their low solubility at the conditions used in skin and hair care products, proteins are commonly used in the form of peptides, formed by the hydrolysis of the proteins.
In hair care and hair coloring compositions, film-forming substances are used to form a protective film on the surface of the hair to protect it from damage due to grooming and styling, shampooing, and exposure to ultraviolet light and the reactive chemicals commonly used in permanent wave agents, hair coloring products, bleaches, and hair straighteners, which denature the hair keratin protein. Moreover, these film-forming substances improve the elasticity of the hair. Film-forming substances that have been used in hair care products include proteins, such as keratin, collagen, soy, and silk proteins and hydrolysates thereof, and polymeric materials, such as polyacrylates, long chain alkyl quaternized amines, and siloxane polymers. For example, Cannell at al. in U.S. Pat. No. 6,013,250 describe a hair care composition for treating hair against chemical and ultraviolet light damage. That composition comprises hydrolyzed protein, having an abundance of anionic amino acids, particularly, sulfur-containing amino acids, and divalent cations. It is proposed in that disclosure that the anionic components of the hydrolyzed protein bind to the hair by means of cationic bridges. Amino acids and their derivatives have also been used in hair care compositions to condition and strengthen hair. For example, O'Toole et al. in WO 0051556 describe hair care compositions containing four or more amino acid compounds selected from histidine, lysine, methionine, tyrosine, tryptophan, and cysteine compounds.
Film-forming substances are also used in skin care compositions to form a protective film on the skin. These films can serve to lubricate and coat the skin to passively impede the evaporation of moisture and smooth and soften the skin. Commonly used film-forming substances in skin care compositions include hydrolyzed animal and vegetable proteins (Puchalski et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,416,873, El-Menshawy et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,482,537, and Kojima et al., JP 02311412) and silk proteins (Philippe et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,280,747 and Fahnestock et al., copending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/704337). Amino acids and derivatives have also been used in skin care compositions as conditioning agents. For example, Kojima et al. in JP 06065049 describe skin care compositions containing amino acids and/or their derivatives and docosahexaenoic acid, its salts or its esters.
Hair coloring agents may be divided into three categories, specifically, permanent, semi-permanent or direct, and temporary. The permanent hair dyes are generally oxidative dyes that provide hair color that lasts about four to six weeks. These oxidative hair dyes consist of two parts, one part contains the oxidative dyes in addition to other ingredients, while the second part contains an oxidizing agent such as hydrogen peroxide. The two components are mixed immediately prior to use. The oxidizing agent oxidizes the dye precursors, which then combine to form large color molecules within the hair shaft. Although the oxidative hair dyes provide long-lasting color, the oxidizing agents they contain cause hair damage. The semi-permanent or direct hair dyes are preformed dye molecules that are applied to the hair and provide color for about six to twelve shampoos. This type of hair dye is gentler to the hair because it does not contain peroxides, but the hair color does not last as long. Some improved durability is achieved by the use of nanoparticle hair coloring materials with a particle size of 10 to 500 nm, as described by Hensen et al. in WO 01045652. These nanoparticle hair coloring materials are conventional direct hair dyes that are treated to obtain nanoscale dimensions and exhibit increased absorption into the hair. Temporary hair dyes are coloring agents that are applied to the hair surface and are removed after one shampoo. It would be desirable to develop a hair coloring agent that provides the durability of the permanent hair dyes without the use of oxidizing agents that damage hair.
The major problem with the current skin care and hair care compositions, non-oxidative hair dyes, as well as nail coloring agents is that they lack the required durability required for long-lasting effects. For this reason, there have been attempts to enhance the binding of the cosmetic agent to the hair, skin or nails. For example, Richardson et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 5,490,980 and Green et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 6,267,957 describe the covalent attachment of cosmetic agents, such as skin conditioners, hair conditioners, coloring agents, sunscreens, and perfumes, to hair, skin, and nails using the enzyme transglutaminase. This enzyme crosslinks an amine moiety on the cosmetic agent to the glutamine residues in skin, hair, and nails. Similarly, Green et al. in WO 0107009 describe the use of the enzyme lysine oxidase to covalently attach cosmetic agents to hair, skin, and nails.
In another approach, cosmetic agents have been covalently attached to proteins or protein hydrolyzates. For example, Lang et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 5,192,332 describe temporary coloring compositions that contain an animal or vegetable protein, or hydrolysate thereof, which contain residues of dye molecules grafted onto the protein chain. In those compositions, the protein serves as a conditioning agent and does not enhance the binding of the cosmetic agent to hair, skin, or nails. Horikoshi et al. in JP 08104614 and Igarashi et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 5,597,386 describe hair coloring agents that consist of an anti-keratin antibody covalently attached to a dye or pigment. The antibody binds to the hair, thereby enhancing the binding of the hair coloring agent to the hair. Similarly, Kizawa et al. in JP 09003100 describe an antibody that recognizes the surface layer of hair and its use to treat hair. A hair coloring agent consisting of that anti-hair antibody coupled to colored latex particles is also described. The use of antibodies to enhance the binding of dyes to the hair is effective in increasing the durability of the hair coloring, but these antibodies are difficult and expensive to produce. Terada et al. in JP 2002363026 describe the use of conjugates consisting of single-chain antibodies, preferably anti-keratin, coupled to dyes, ligands, and cosmetic agents for skin and hair care compositions. The single-chain antibodies may be prepared using genetic engineering techniques, but are still difficult and expensive to prepare because of their large size. Findlay in WO 00048558 describes the use of calycin proteins, such as β-lactoglobulin, which contain a binding domain for a cosmetic agent and another binding domain that binds to at least a part of the surface of a hair fiber or skin surface, for conditioners, dyes, and perfumes. Again these proteins are large and difficult and expensive to produce.
Linter in U.S. Pat. No. 6,620,419 describes peptides grafted to a fatty acid chain and their use in cosmetic and dermopharmaceutical applications. The peptides described in that disclosure are chosen because they stimulate the synthesis of collagen; they are not specific binding peptides that enhance the durability of hair and skin conditioners, and hair, nail, and skin colorants.
Since its introduction in 1985, phage display has been widely used to discover a variety of ligands including peptides, proteins and small molecules for drug targets (Dixit, J. of Sci. & Ind. Research, 57:173–183 (1998)). The applications have expanded to other areas such as studying protein folding, novel catalytic activities, DNA-binding proteins with novel specificities, and novel peptide-based biomaterial scaffolds for tissue engineering (Hoess, Chem. Rev. 101:3205–3218 (2001) and Holmes, Trends Biotechnol. 20:16–21 (2002)). Whaley et al. (Nature 405:665–668 (2000)) disclose the use of phage display screening to identify peptide sequences that can bind specifically to different crystallographic forms of inorganic semiconductor substrates.
A modified screening method that comprises contacting a peptide library with an anti-target to remove peptides that bind to the anti-target, then contacting the non-binding peptides with the target has been described (Estell et al. WO 0179479, Murray et al. U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2002/0098524, and Janssen et al. U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2003/0152976). Using that method, a peptide sequence that binds to hair and not to skin, given as SEQ ID NO:1, and a peptide sequence that binds to skin and not hair, given as SEQ ID NO:2, were identified. Using the same method, Janssen et al. (WO 04048399) identified other skin-binding and hair-binding peptides, as well as several binding motifs. Although the potential use of these peptides in personal care applications is suggested in those disclosures, the covalent coupling of these peptides to coloring agents and conditioning agents to prepare high-affinity hair conditioners, skin conditioners, hair colorants, nail colorants and skin colorants is not described. A method for identifying high-affinity phage-peptide clones is also described in those disclosures. The method involves using PCR to identify peptides that remain bound to the target after acid elution.
Reisch (Chem. Eng. News 80:16–21 (2002)) reports that a family of peptides designed to target an ingredient of specific human tissue has been developed for personal care applications. However, no description of peptide-based conditioners or coloring agents are disclosed in that publication.
One of the peptide binding sequences of the instant invention, given as SEQ ID NO:3, has been reported for several other purposes. For example, Hupp et al. in WO 02065134 disclose the peptide sequence SEQ ID NO:3 as a peptide for use in modulating the binding of a p53 polypeptide to a p300 polypeptide, useful for regulating the mammalian cell cycle or to induce or prevent cell death. Liu et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 6,344,443 describe the use of that same peptide sequence to inhibit binding of tumor necrosis factor alpha to its receptor for preventing or reversing inflammatory changes in patients with arthritis and other inflammatory diseases. Another peptide binding sequence of the instant invention, given as SEQ ID NO:4, was reported by Jagota et al. in WO 03102020 as a carbon nanotube-binding peptide.
In view of the above, a need exists for hair and skin conditioners, and hair nail, and skin colorants that provide improved durability for long lasting effects and are easy and inexpensive to prepare.
Applicants have met the stated needs by identifying peptide sequences using phage display screening that specifically bind to hair, skin, and nails with high affinity and using them to design peptide-based hair conditioners, skin conditioners, hair colorants, nail colorants, and skin colorants.